Essay - Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle Are the Most Famous of the...

Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle are the most famous of the ancient Greek philosophers. All three of them have left a deep impact on the Western philosophy. In this paper we will look at ***** main points of their philosophies and the impact they left on us.

Socrates (469-399 BC)

Socrates was the first of ***** ***** trio. He did not write any books and most ***** what ***** know about Socrates has been derived from the works of his equally ill*****trious pupil, Plato. Socrates not having written ***** book is part ***** h***** ***** as he believed in t***** superiority of argument over writ*****g and spent most of his life in public places practicing dialogue and ***** with his contemporaries.

Socrates' basic philosophy was ethical in nature. He believed ***** an objective underst*****ing ***** justice, love, and virtue. He particularly emp*****ized 'self-knowledge' and believed in the essential goodness of men. According to Socrates no person is willingly bad and '***** is k*****wledge.' According ***** ***** philosophy, it is only with knowledge that one can differentiate between 'right' and 'wrong' and once a person h*****s the knowledge he (or she) will act rightly. He also placed great emphasis on rati*****al argu*****t.

Plato (428-347 BC)

***** ***** a true disciple of his famous teacher in every way but one: unlike Socrates, he believed in writing. Most of ***** writing was in t***** f*****m of a dialogue in which his philosophical ideas were advanced, discussed ***** cri*****icized through debate involving two or more persons. Plato's dialogues ***** be divided into the early, middle and the later dialogues. The early dialogues are an attempt by Plato to describe the philosophy ***** Socrates, while the ***** and later works represent his own *****. At ***** heart of *****'s philosophy ***** his theory of Forms (or ideas) ***** ***** the*****y of Knowledge. Plato distinguishes between the two levels of awareness: opinion and *****. He believed that observations, including those of science ***** just opinions that could be right or wrong but the higher level of ***** was knowledge backed up by the insight of reason, ***** was abiding ***** universal. Plato's o*****r the*****ies include his political theory *****d in his Republic that is concerned with the question of justice and ***** theory of the enlightened 'philosopher-king' providing the political leadership.

Aristotle (384-322 BC)

Aristotle was the third ***** ***** philosopher ***** scientist who was a p*****il of Plato at his academy. Aristotle's range of intellectual thought is astonishingly vast covering most ***** ***** sciences (physics, chemistry, zoology, botany), ***** (metaphysics, logic, ethics, psychology, political *****) and arts (history, rhetoric, literary theory).

Apart from his pioneering work in science, particularly in the study of zoology, ***** most notable work as a philosopher is in the field of 'logic' as he invented the ***** ***** formal logic ***** devised a system known *****s 'Aristotelean syllogistic' that for centuries ***** regarded as the sum of logic. In psychology Aristotle made a deep study of the soul ********** concluded that